


this house is a home

by greywardenblue



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Gen, Toby/Tybalt are together but not in focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2021-01-06 00:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21217703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywardenblue/pseuds/greywardenblue
Summary: This house is a home, and these are her kids, all three of them. Tybalt is lying to himself if he claims he didn't know what he was signing up for.





	this house is a home

The car goes silent, and Toby looks around at her family. The large cat on the front seat is already raising his head with a yawn, but the two teenagers in the backseat don’t stir, and neither does the Abyssinian in Quentin’s lap. Toby reaches forward to open the door on Tybalt’s side, then turns back to nudge the nearest foot, which happens to belong to Quentin.

“Rise and shine, everyone.”

Quentin mumbles something and Raj yawns, but there is no true response. Toby rolls her eyes.

“Come on, boys. I’m not carrying you inside.”

Just as she says that, Tybalt, now taller than a cat, opens the door on Gillian’s side and picks her up gently, nudging the door closed behind them. Toby blinks in surprise, then gets out of the car and opens Quentin’s door to nudge him harder.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Quentin picks up Raj like a dishtowel and follows Toby, then stops when he sees the other two.

“How come Gillian gets to be carried inside?”

Toby snorts. “Because Gillian isn’t taller than me. Move it, mister.”

Gillian stirs at the sounds. “Are we home yet?” she asks sleepily.

Toby softens. “Yes, baby, we’re home,” she says as she goes to open the door. Gillian might have two homes now, but this is finally home too, and that is enough for her.

“It will be interesting to have children that aren’t fully-grown teenagers,” Tybalt says. Toby stops what she’s doing to look at him with wide eyes, her heart beating faster at the suggestion. Then she laughs.

“These ones didn’t come out as fully-grown teenagers! I’d know, I was there for at least one of them.”

Raj meows something in response, and Tybalt laughs too.

“Yes, Raj, we all know you came out as a kitten.”

“Wait, really?” Gillian asks as she’s carried into the house and towards the stairs. Toby follows next to them, with Quentin and Raj sleepily wandering behind. “Was the mother in kitten... I mean, cat-form too?”

“Yes, she was,” Toby says, not bothering to mention that Raj’s mother always was.

“Huh. Would have been funny, if it was a human... human-shaped person, giving birth to a kitten.”

Toby blinks, horrified. “We’re not doing that.” She looks at Tybalt. “We’re not doing that, right?”

Tybalt laughs again. “No, the shape of the child depends on the shape of the mother at the moment of birth. But Cait Sidhe children tend to prefer kitten form in the first couple of years because it develops faster.”

Toby watches him silently, and she remembers all the blood from the memory. She’s glad that he can talk about birth so easily, and she only hopes her getting pregnant won’t be too traumatic for him. Well, or either of them. She’s still not sure how she’s going to pull off a pregnancy with how not-calm her life usually is.

But for this moment, it will be worth it.

“Good sleep,” Quentin says, and Toby repeats it back as he disappears into his room along with Raj. They never tried to tell them not to share - she knows it wouldn’t work.

Tybalt carries Gillian to her bed and Toby tucks her in, then they pull the door shut quietly and retreat to their own room. Things are calm.


End file.
